BS: New Speak: words they are achangin

Subject: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 06:38 AM

I saw that North Korean missiles are now being called
Projectiles

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 06:44 AM

Well that's at least a bit more suggestive of their intent than Little Boy and Fat Man, coined 75 years ago. Not-so-new speak, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 07:27 AM

impromptu, ad hoc and spontaneous, have now become "pop up"

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 07:57 AM

Fact Check UK? Wot kinda speek be that?

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 08:25 AM

Self-isolate?

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 08:40 AM

witch hunt hoax

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 08:46 AM

Fake nooze

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 09:07 AM

Oh please can I have my favourite word of all time - 'innit'?
Any statement can be followed by innit. eg 'He went over to his mum's innit?' I just love that!
I also like 'soz' for sorry. Easier to text I suppose.

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 09:09 AM

Totz.

The one I still mind is Improvised Explosive Device instead of just plain Bomb. Or Peacekeeper for warrior.

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 10:22 AM

I understand that "urban", like " nationalist", is taking on or has been accorded a new sense. Anyone else encountered changes to either?

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 10:28 AM

'Improvised Explosive Device' (IED) is not really a replacement for 'Bomb', but for 'home made bomb'.
I read 'bomb' as meaning any explosive device, and unless specifically stated (home-made, or IED), as something which can be purchased from an arms dealer.
IEDs are more rough and ready, and available to those with whom arms traders would not normally deal.

IED: Not to be confused with IUD :)

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 10:35 AM

"Innit" I take as ending a comment with a request for confirmation (or an opportunity to challenge).
It is not really a new construction, older English might have had a statement followed with "is it not?", or "isn't it?. Even French sentences can be ended with "n'est-ce pas?". Is that not so?

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 10:47 AM

I remeber 'friendly fire when it was "killing your own side and collateral damage as Killing civilians
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 10:51 AM

I see bombs more as things wot are dropped via aircraft. RPG and mortars close cousins.

IED are more akin to mines.

It is fair to say we get the words we need, as need arises. Like Fakebook.
psychodelic was taken out of the OED and didn't they remove redundant?








Along with gullible :)

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Charmion
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 10:52 AM

My current editorial project is a big, fat book about Canadian operations in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. IEDs are all over it.

The modifier "home-made" disappeared from the lexicon very early because the devices were, and are, assembled in secret factories (not homes), using designs, manufacturing techniques and materials distributed through insurgent networks. The triggers and detonators, in particular, are frequently manufactured elsewhere -- i.e., Pakistan, Iran, or pick your own favourite sponsor of terrorism -- and smuggled into the theatre of operations. The plastic jugs, canisters and drums in which the explosive charges are packed are used everywhere for agricultural and industrial products such as fuels, pesticides and lubricants.

In the world of munitions, the word "bomb" is a term of art that does not describe all IEDs precisely.

Also, acronym. If a military person has a choice between a common noun and an acronym, the acronym wins every time.

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 11:12 AM

"Innit?" can be replaced by "yeah?" if you want to sound more persuading, or by "eh?" if you want to sound a bit sarky.

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 11:15 AM

Saying "going forward" should be an arrestable offence, and it gets me goat big-time when I hear yanks saying "if you will..."

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Charmion
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 11:28 AM

The meaning of "friendly fire" hasn"t changed, Jim, but it's not precise enough for modern First World war-fighting.

Operations analysis (the study of what worked and what went wrong in military operations) has an experimental aspect called "war gaming", in which aspects of a conflict are played out in a group thought experiment. In these sessions, the main parties to the conflict are designated Blue (us), and Red (them -- the enemy). For the history buffs in our midst, this technique became popular during the Cold War.

But the post-Cold War world is full of conflicts whose complexities are openly acknowledged. In a counter-insurgency operation, such as the continuing Thing in Afghanistan, there are at least three sides: the "coalition forces" (aka ISAF and the Americans), the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and "insurgents" of various stripes, such as the Taliban. So the war-gamers had to account for the people who are in the war but are not Us (a First World Superpower and its allies) or Them (the clear and present danger to the First World Superpower, aka The Enemy). In Afghanistan, that actor is the national government, so the war-gamers chose Green to represent the Afghan national security forces, both army and police.

So, nowadays, in a news story about Afghan police officers turning their weapons on American soldiers, you will see the phrase "green-on-blue attack". In 2002, when a USAF pilot strafed a Canadian infantry battalion on exercise at the Tarnak Farm training area near Kandahar City, it was a "blue-on-blue" incident.

I haven't seen "friendly fire" in years.

"Collateral damage" has likewise gone out of fashion, for (in my opinion) two reasons: first, it is often difficult to identify the intended target of an attack, especially when it is an IED strike, and, second, because the acknowledged target of an attack is a civilian and others who die in the fire-fight or drone strike are assumed to be that person's henchmen.

For example, in 2009 a massive IED blew up a bus in Kandahar City, killing everyone aboard and many passers-by, and wounding lots more; the butcher's bill came to more than 150 casualties. There were no military installations nearby, and the road where the IED was laid was not part of a convoy route. Eventually, intelligence analysts concluded that the IED blast was part of a long-running war between commercial factions over government contracts, but the intended target was never identified. Perhaps the road surface itself was the target -- a big enough hole, and everybody with a dump-truck and half a dozen shovels could get a piece of the repair action.

See the problem? Events like that produce the weird jargon of today, and retire the weird jargon of yesterday.

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Charmion
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 11:34 AM

"If you will" is Yank for "in my opinion" or "I think".

"Going forward" means "from now on", which is way too much like what Mum says when she lowers the boom and, therefore, not cool.

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 12:08 PM

I's never heard of friendly fire until the US began killing their own in Vietnam and later Afghanistan
I have little doubt it was invented to sanitize what was happening
It's simply not good enough to used wods like 'complicated' when the real cause is that weapons have been developed to create fear rather than take out opposing troops (Hiroshima and Nagasaki are pretty good examples of that)
You might as well add 'special rendition' to the list - torture has always been torture, whatever you call it
When I was comin' up, it was a war crime - not musch sighn of 'prosocutin of that nowadays - or perhaps there's a new word for that too !
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 12:18 PM

I'm not sure I like 'yeah'. It seems a bit dismissive, as does the now-universal 'whatever'.
I recently joined Facebook in order to leave a message for a chap who has my maiden name and lives where my father was born. He's called Duncan. My message was very polite, and gave a few details of my grandparents, as I suspected the man is actually my cousin.
I received a reply which said,"Yeah. Your dad and mine were brothers. So yeah, we're cousins." I must be a ghastly snob, as I didn't like the sound of him at all.
My funny sis later told me she already knew of Duncan. It's true he is our cousin and he's a terrible racist, member of the BNP etc. She double-dared me to send him a photo of my husband, but I haven't yet!
He'd be horrified innit? Yeah!

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Charmion
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 12:33 PM

Jim, most of us here, including you, are too young to remember when "friendly fire" entered the language. I have seen the phrase in documents dating back to the Great War, when it usually meant artillery rounds that landed on the wrong targets.

You don't like "complicated"? It's the best I could do without writing a long paragraph. All wars are complicated, of course, but some are more complicated than others. Wars of insurgency are full of cross-cutting loyalties and people changing sides, which makes them "interesting" for historians and bloody difficult for the people who have to fight them and do so under the unremitting gaze of the backseat drivers of the news media.

Which, of course, is where the euphemisms come from. Our ancestors could say that the role of infantry is "to close with and destroy the enemy", but God forbid that a senior commander in a "good" army of the 21st century ever use such blunt terms where civilians can hear him.

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: meself
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 12:51 PM

Bear in mind that we are several nations here separated by a common language. I had to look up "sarky" - and in a country in which the utterance of "eh" is - or was - so common as to be a stereotypical identifier, I cannot imagine how it could be used in a "sarky" (i.e., sarcastic) way.

Not long ago, I was talking to a Canadian academic who, after a long and far-flung career, settled into a position at Cambridge. "I was relieved that I wouldn't have to learn another new language," says she. "Boy, was I wrong about that!"

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 12:54 PM

Here in the UK a footpath is wot U walk on. Sidewalk if you will. But in the UK it has a legal definition outside of the highway, where you can walk, even across someone's land if it is a designated footpath. They are distinct from bridleways that horse & rider may use as well. And even motorbikes in many cases. towpaths are foot paths, unless you are a pushbike!

So when did all our footpaths become footways?
Now all roadworks that impinge bear signs saying "FOOTWAY CLOSED". Thus not implying any legal rights attached thereto, one has to assume.

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: meself
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 12:58 PM

Btw, I wouldn't say that "if you will" means "in my opinion" - it's synonymous with "as it were" - in other words, the speaker is expressing awareness that there is something unusual - if not potentially offensive or misleading - in her wording. Not an expression I use, but it doesn't, if you will, get up my nose.

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 01:00 PM

Bombs are round and black, the size of bowling balls or xmas puddings,
have a sparkling lit fuse poking out,
and might have a funny face, or sometimes the word "BOMB" painted on them...

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: G-Force
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 01:02 PM

I agree about 'going forward'. Well I suppose if you believe Albert Einstein we could go backward too. But for most of us, going forward must be the default, so why say it?

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 01:03 PM

When an emergency RED ALERT progresses to a BROWN ALERT...!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 01:55 PM

never trust a fart.

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 01:58 PM

"Jim, most of us here, including you, are too young to remember when "friendly fire" entered the language."
Must have missed it, I genuinely never heard it prior to the Vietnam war
It apparently originated in World War One, but was never accepted as a term until WW2   
Must be my naive opinion that killing anybody is distinctly 'unfriendly'

I assume I'm ok with 'Collateral damage' (May 1961 - Vietnam) - and 'Special rendition' (2005, when the US started sending terrorist suspects to countries notorious for their use of torture to be 'questioned - though there were rumours of it four years earlier)
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 02:21 PM

"Sidewalk if you will."

Grr. Somebody call a constable...

When I prattled on about "yeah" and "eh," I was envisaging their use only at the end of a sentence, either a suggestion or a question, employed with the Aussie upturn inflexion. "So, you were at the pub last night, yeah?" is far friendlier than "So, you were at the pub last night, eh?", especially when you say the latter with the hint of a cynical snarl...

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 02:33 PM

New Speak is when powers that be invent new word usage as in naming laws the opposie of what they do, like
Citizens United

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 03:16 PM

And it's railway station, not a bloody "train station..."

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 03:19 PM

A bomb is something that blows up - mines are a type of bomb. Saying Improvised is condescending and thus annoying. Nothing to worry about, it's only improvised ...

Pet peeve: Bucket list. When else would you do those things, *after* you die?

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: meself
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 03:35 PM

'"So, you were at the pub last night, yeah?" is far friendlier than "So, you were at the pub last night, eh?", especially when you say the latter with the hint of a cynical snarl...' When I imagine these in an English context and in English accents, I understand exactly what you mean. In Canada, however, someone saying, "So, you were at the pub last night, eh?" would be ordinary speech, and would likely either be a neutral conversation-starter ("Many people there?"), or full of bonhomie ("Betcha had a good time, eh?"). Of course, if it were a cop saying it while he's got your face shoved against the wall, it might not be so friendly.

'"So, you were at the pub last night, yeah?"' would just sound kinda weird.

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 03:54 PM

The word "drop" is now often used to mean "premier" or "introduce". As in, "The first episode of the new season of 'That TV Show Everybody's Watching' was dropped last night."

To me, "drop" means to get rid of something. As in, "'That TV Show Everybody's Watching' was dropped because nobody was really watching it."

I guess that makes "drop" one of those "auto-antonym" words that can mean either of two opposite things. (Other examples: "cleave" and "sanction".)

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 04:18 PM

More and more English people are writing "mom"...

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 04:27 PM

Duncan,my new-found cousin, is very much a Geordie. I wonder if the 'yeah' is common parlance now among folk in the NE? I might ask one of our lovely neighbours John, who is also a Geordie, and of the younger generation. He might be able to enlighten me.

My sister uses 'yup' in e mails. I don't much like that either. (fussy old biddy aren't I?)

An expression which irritates me quite a bit is 'bored of'. Very common nowadays (innit eh?)

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 07:11 PM

Downsize. Pre-owned/pre-loved. Pre-order. Prior to. Albeit. "On a daily basis." Bugger, you've really got me started now...

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 07:21 PM

Ah Steve, I loved your list of office-speak on another thread a while back, things like:
         Run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes it.
         Blue sky thinking
         Thinking outside the box
         Singing from the same hymn sheet etc.
People groan now at these I expect.
That's the trouble with new expressions - they quickly become old hat!

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 07:25 PM

I love to get my ducks in a row before I start cooking, Eliza. Can you jump in the pool with me and swim with that?

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 07:27 PM

Pwaaaahaaahaaagh Steve! Love it!

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 07:38 PM

Now then, Eliza, we could do with an idea shower in order to identify the low-hanging fruit. Let's put the record on to see who dances. The main thing is to not let the grass grow too long on this one. Let's put in the overtime and discuss this at lunchtime al desko...

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Mar 20 - 03:42 AM

It's 7am the next day Steve, and I've just spilt my morning tea reading those! Hahahahaaaaaagh!

I also find "I was like..." irritating. I assume it merely means "I said..." in which case why not use that? Examples:-

She was thirty minutes late and I was like, "Where have you been?"
The dog ran into the road and I was like, "Oh no!"

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Mar 20 - 04:26 AM

And it's railway station, not a bloody "train station..." - and the distinction is?

How are you on bus stations? Not a bloody roadway station**?
Anyway Gloucester doesn't have a brand spanking new bus station it is a Hub. and buses arrive via a one way street (except buses) that is called a bus gate - wot is that all abart then?
So well thought through that they still have to use streets around as bus termini, or did I mean terminals?

Just as a wind up, would you care to opine on rail waystation. Factually correct and IMNSHO more correct!


**in Stroud they bulldozed the bus station and use the street as the focal point for all buses. That would be a roadway station I submit. We just call it bus stopsssss

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Mar 20 - 04:38 AM

who is also a Geordie, - only if from Newcastle. From Sunderland they is Makems

'cos Newcastle built the boats, but Sunderland made them (fitted them oot)

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Mar 20 - 07:12 AM

collection of best words

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Mar 20 - 07:23 AM

Well, Mr Red, on roads you can have bus stations, coach stations and petrol stations, so if it's a place where buses gather it's helpful to have the word "bus" in there for identity purposes. Not needed for railway stations. "Train station" is an ugly Americanism that we've let creep in.

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Charmion
Date: 11 Mar 20 - 12:02 PM

"I was like" typically indicates a paraphrase, at least among the denizens of Ontario.

As for "focal point" -- don't get me started!

Subject: RE: BS: New Speak: words they are achangin
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Mar 20 - 01:22 PM

"Epicentre" is almost universally misused. That should be an automatic prison sentence.